[mantenpanther]

I went to school in Austria in the 80s/90s. The anti-nuclear stance was a big part of education (I assume similar to Germany). We had to read stories like Die Wolke (The Cloud) and were terrified and somehow traumatized in a young age. We discussed this stuff for hours. Also a final deposit site was planned in the mountains in my area, so after Chernobyl there was a big activism against it - thousands of people connecting the mountain peaks in a long human chain (Menschenkette). The site was abandoned.

I do not want to take sides, for our prosperity as humans I tend to agree that nuclear may be a big part of the solution. On the other hand realistically almost no area is safe from disaster (naturally, politically). Risk management is key here, you can not assume that everything works out as planned.

[dathinab]

I went to School in German,

and at least where I went to School in the 2000s discussion of pros and cons of nuclear power where covered a lot but where rather objective.

Most strong anti nuclear movements in my generation (and local area) came from associations outside of school, e.g. parents.

As far as I can tell there was a very strong anti-nuclear movement in the generations which are now 50-70 or so, i.e. the Generation which currently probably has most influence in the politics.

Through in defense of the Green party it was not them but the CDU (~moderate conservative party) which did speed up the shutdown of nuclear power after (somewhat?) reassessing the safety of German power plans after Fukushima. Given that the CDU is very business orientated and this wasn't good business this says a lot about the state of the remaining nuclear power plants IMHO.

EDIT: As a side note IMHO the German Green party are hypocrites, don't think of them as a strongly environmental focused party. They pretend to be one but in the end aren't really that. (Through environmental protection still matters for them anyway.)

[michaelgrafl]

I went to school in Austria in the 80s/90s, too.

I remember reading "The Children of Schewenborn" in school and being really disturbed by it. Pretty sure I wasn't alone in that.

Good times!

[daniel-cussen]

Reading about you reading about nuclear and finding it disturbing, I find disturbing. Not blaming you, but yes well the thing is in fact the nuclear bomb was designed by Leo Szilard to bomb Germany, I think specifically Berlin, but at any rate the axis. The Reich. The Nazis, same thing, it was a weapon for fighting antisemitism. The bomb was for the Reich. The bomb was originally intended for bombing Central Europe, and then as a side-thing to generate power (same thing, bombs release energy, power plants release energy). And the two are linked, American power plants were designed to get energy out of uranium, so good energy, but in the process make plutonium for nukes. I'm not sure if the first power plant (I think 200 watts) turned the uranium into plutonium.

I started writing this comment with just about the opposite point of view I finished writing it with. Oh well, it happens. But energy is power, it can be used for good or evil, it's not strictly evil, and in fact if you want to do good you'll need power to do it.